<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Eliot's Extraordinary Intervention by Mosca</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832567">Eliot's Extraordinary Intervention</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca'>Mosca</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magicians (TV), Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Background Eddie/Mo, Background Eliot Waugh/Charlton, Clothed Sex, Crossovers &amp; Fandom Fusions, Genderfluid Character, Hotel Sex, Other, Parent-Child Relationship, background Eliot Waugh/Quentin Coldwater, musical numbers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 04:47:00</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>11,893</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24832567</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mosca/pseuds/Mosca</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Maggie meets a strange man in a bar. Mo honors an agreement. Zoey opens a white box.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Eliot Waugh &amp; Maggie Clarke, Eliot Waugh/Mo (Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>A Ficathon Goes Into A Bar</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Eliot's Extraordinary Intervention</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I wrote a whole damn musical for the 2020 Into a Bar challenge. My prompt was "Eliot Waugh walks into a bar and meets Maggie Clarke." It takes place a couple of months after the season 1 finale of Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist, and at least six months after the series finale of The Magicians, with extrapolation of what might have happened in a sixth season.</p>
<p>This fic contains: extensive references to characters who have died in both canons, acknowledgment that Charlton exists and is kind of adorable, the first time in my long fanfic career that I've gotten to write a sex scene with a canon genderfluid character, Spotify embeds that I hope work correctly, and exploding bunnies.</p>
<p>Profuse thanks to my beta readers, Lovessong and Illmatchtheminrenown.</p>
<p>See notes at the end for a full list of songs with YouTube links to live versions and covers.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>1. </p>
<p>Maggie waits alone in a booth, trying to remember if this is what a first date feels like. This meeting was supposed to take place in the afternoon, over coffee, but the guy said his flight was delayed and asked if they could just meet at the bar in his hotel. She’s thinking of walking out, but she knows she won’t. An hour ago, she almost convinced herself not to come, but she got in the car. A week ago, she almost scrolled past the Facebook ad asking if she or a loved one was experiencing extraordinary, unexplained new abilities, but she’d clicked on it and filled out the form.</p>
<p>A man walks in and asks, “Maggie?” He’s in the doorway, some distance away from her, letting his voice echo through the sparsely populated bar. Maggie waves. “Oh, good, I was starting to think that after all of this, you wouldn’t show. I’m Eliot. And I am going to excuse myself for a moment, because you would not believe how much I need a drink.”</p>
<p>He is not what she expected. She thought, college professor, someone closer to her own age than her children’s, tweedy and distinguished. She wanted the kind of man she would want to meet in a bar. Instead, he’s young and lanky, dressed in a fussily coordinated three-piece suit, probably gay and possibly an alcoholic. Maggie tells herself this is for the best.</p>
<p>Eliot returns with a double shot of something brown on the rocks. Maggie clings to the stem of her wine glass with both hands. “So tell me about your daughter,” he says. “It’s your daughter, right? What’s been happening to her, or what she’s been doing that got your attention.”</p>
<p>“She says she hears people sing,” Maggie tells him. “And when they sing, she can tell what people are feeling or thinking. She calls them ‘heart songs.’”</p>
<p>Eliot sets down his glass and steeples his fingers. “And when they sing, do they know they’re singing?” </p>
<p>Maggie shakes her head.</p>
<p>“Can other people hear or see them?”</p>
<p>She shakes her head again.</p>
<p>“Is it just the song, or a whole musical number?”</p>
<p>That is a weirder question, and Maggie hesitates. “From what she’s told me, it’s a whole number.”</p>
<p>“So she hears background music, sometimes other people get involved to dance or sing harmony, that kind of thing?”</p>
<p>Maggie nods, almost laughing, almost panicking.</p>
<p>“And how does she seem when this is going on? How does she react?”</p>
<p>“Like she’s watching someone break into song,” Maggie says. “Like she’s seeing something nobody else can see, and it’s kind of wonderful and kind of embarrassing.”</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Eliot dips his finger into his glass and traces an intricate shape on the surface of the table. Maggie hears guitar strains and feels Mitch’s presence under her skin, less like a ghost than like a song stuck in her head. The sensation is peaceful. The song flows through her skin and into her lips, and she’s singing. <em>Just yesterday morning, they let me know you were gone.</em> By the time she gets to the chorus, Eliot is harmonizing with her, lifting <em>but I always thought that I’d see you again </em>like a prayer. Maggie feels lighter and lighter as the song progresses, and by the time she gets to that puzzle of a line in the last verse - <em>sweet dreams and flying machines in pieces on the ground </em>- she’s transformed in a way she cannot place. Her grief hasn’t disappeared, or even decreased in intensity, but it’s become a force to invigorate her, to push her forward.</p>
<p>“Something like that?” Eliot says, sounding satisfied with himself, as the last guitar chords fade.</p>
<p>Maggie smiles softly. “I hope it’s something like that.” She sips her wine. “So you can help my daughter?”</p>
<p>Eliot chuckles. “I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone can really help anybody. But I’d like to talk to her.”</p>
<p>Maggie downs the rest of her wine. “Let’s go surprise her.”</p>
<p>Eliot grins. “Oh. I <em>like </em>you.”</p>
<p>2.</p>
<p>Zoey opens the door without looking, because it’s 10:00 at night and the only person who would knock at this hour is Mo. She’s not in the mood for another torch song about how much Mo misses Eddie, but she’s not in the mood to sit alone with her own man troubles and grief, either.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>It’s not Mo; it’s her mom, who has an emergency key to her building that Zoey hoped had settled to the bottom of a junk drawer. And not just her mom, but a guy Zoey has never met, wearing a perfectly coordinated suit in complementary shades of blue. As soon as they’ve stepped through the door, the guy breaks into a full Las Vegas drag queen Cher number. <em>If I could turn back time, if I could find a way, I’d take back those words that hurt you, and you’d stay.</em> He’s stripping out of his suit, flinging off his vest so it soars into the kitchen and lands in the sink, draping his tie around the back of Mom’s neck like a feather boa and pulling her up to dance with him. There are glitter cannons and low-scale pyrotechnics. It’s easy to get lost in the performance and not wonder who he’s singing about with such regret. </p>
<p>When he’s finished singing, Mom applauds. Zoey assumes that’s part of the number and doesn’t think anything of it until the guy says, “That was fun. I’m Eliot.”</p>
<p>She turns her head and regards him out of the corner of her eye. “You… knew you were singing?”</p>
<p>“I felt your magic surge right as we came in, and I thought I’d roll with it. I let your mom watch - I hope that’s okay. Other than that, I didn’t interfere with what you created.”</p>
<p>“Honey, Eliot is from Brakebills University,” Mom says. “He studies cases like yours.”</p>
<p>“Cases,” Zoey repeats. “Like mine.” She backs away until she runs into the couch. “So you’re, what, a psychiatrist?”</p>
<p>“No,” Eliot says. “More like a researcher. A grad student, technically, although if you’re doing what I think you’re doing in the way I think you’re doing it, you might be the kick in the ass I need to wrap up my dissertation and submit it.”</p>
<p>Zoey’s first instinct is to support Eliot, but there’s a thick vein of skepticism running through her. “And what is it, exactly, that you think I’m doing?”</p>
<p>“You’re using music as a channeling mechanism to translate raw telepathic energy into feelings and motivations that you can understand,” Eliot says. “Quite clever, actually. My friends and I came up with the same strategy when we were drunk, but we were a bunch of full-time magic students. Seeing you come up with it on your own, in the wild, is… fabulous.” </p>
<p>“I didn’t come up with anything,” Zoey says. “I was getting headaches, so I got an MRI, and while I was in the machine, there was a power surge, and ever since -”</p>
<p>“This power surge. It was in October of last year?”</p>
<p>Zoey nods cautiously.</p>
<p>“Then your powers would have manifested no matter where you were. There was an event. I can explain later on if you feel like becoming very bored,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>3.</p>
<p>Mo hears strains of Cher coming from Zoey’s apartment and tries to convince herself there’s nothing unusual about it. It’s getting late, and she should not have had that six o’clock latte; what she needs is a glass of wine and a Marvin Gaye record to wind her down. </p>
<p>She pours the wine. She’s still lonely. Cher is a cry for help. Mo goes to Zoey’s door, bringing the bottle of wine along with her.</p>
<p>There is a man on Zoey’s couch. Zoey’s mom is also present, but that hardly registers, because there is a tall white man on Zoey’s couch with manicured fingernails and a cultivated layer of facial scruff and a deep dimple in the center of his chin, sitting with the ankle of one long leg crossed over the knee of the other, and Mo would like to drinkhim and then have another.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>A funky synthesizer riff fills the room. The guy gets up from the couch and swaggers toward Mo, purring, <em>You don’t have to be beautiful to turn me on.</em> Mo locks eyes with Zoey, who is unhelpfully trying not to laugh. There are dance moves, and Mo feels her limbs following. She reminds herself to think of Eddie, but her body has decided to live in the moment.</p>
<p>Mo picks up the second verse. <em>I want to be your fantasy, maybe you could be mine. </em>They are twirling each other around in Zoey’s drab little living room. Their faces are close, almost kissing but not, the tension as playful and unresolved as the song itself. </p>
<p>The song wraps up. “Sorry,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“So I guess that’s how strangers hit on you all the time now?” Mo says, using the quip to paper over all the things that don’t need to be said. This is what it’s like for Zoey every day now, and what’s fun after a glass of wine on a lonely Wednesday night must be exhausting when it never stops. </p>
<p>“Yeah, my powers involve a fair amount of sexual harassment,” Zoey says. “I wish I could do more than tune it out.”</p>
<p>“And I’m guessing that this gentleman with the lovely falsetto is the reason I got a taste of it?” Mo says.</p>
<p>“Mo, Eliot, Eliot, Mo,” Zoey says hurriedly. “Mo is my neighbor across the hall and one of my best friends. Eliot is here to study me like a bug in a jar.”</p>
<p>“He’s here to help you, sweetie,” Zoey’s mom says, patting Zoey’s hand.</p>
<p>“Why not both?” Eliot’s smile is almost a wink. He slides back onto the couch. “I have an idea that might or might not work, and you’d have to all agree to it. No nonconsensual magic in this house. Before I can help Zoey get more control over her magic, I need to get a better handle on how it works. I want to create a sort of bubble around us where every time she activates her powers, I see what she’s seeing. But we’ll also need some other people around so she has some emotions or thoughts that will trigger songs. The two of you are both aware of her situation and clearly care very much about her, so if you’re all willing - and that includes Zoey - I’d like to extend the bubble around you as well.”</p>
<p>Before Mo can decide what she wants, Zoey’s mom says, “I’m in, of course,” and Zoey says it’s fine with her. Mo doesn’t want to be the one to say no, so she agrees. A few days of impromptu musical theater - what could go wrong?</p>
<p>As soon as he has consent, Eliot makes a series of stylized gestures. Mo expects a sign that the magic is working, a chill breeze or a flash of light, but she feels no change. Eliot says, “It should be all set up. Do you mind if we wait until tomorrow morning to test it? That spell reminded me that I have a six-hour flight to sleep off.”</p>
<p>Zoey’s mom offers to drive Eliot back to his hotel, and Mo decides it’s a good time to take her leave as well. On the way out the door, Eliot says, “You and I should talk. In the morning, if you’d rather.”</p>
<p>“I have a boyfriend,” Mo says, equally proud and apologetic. “Of course, he’s currently working on a cruise ship somewhere between here and Alaska, and we agreed to keep things open while he’s away, but…”</p>
<p>Eliot takes Mo’s wrist and lifts it to his lips. “So sleep on it. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings too much.”</p>
<p>“Don’t make any promises you won’t be able to sing your way out of,” Mo says.</p>
<p>4. </p>
<p>“It’s a really good thing you’re doing,” Eliot says as he gets into Maggie’s car. “Zoey’s lucky to have a mom that cares this much.” </p>
<p>“I try my best,” Maggie says.</p>
<p>“Sometimes trying your best is more than people realize,” Eliot says. He shifts back and forth so quickly between wise beyond his years and a young man who’s trying to project self-assurance when he’s not sure he has the right to his authority. Maggie can’t puzzle him out.</p>
<p>“Your parents haven’t?” Maggie guesses, and immediately reprimands herself for getting too personal too quickly. She hears a few notes on the breeze and readies herself for a song, but the music withers.</p>
<p>“My parents wanted a son who was just like them,” Eliot says. “They gave up on trying their best by the time I was in middle school.”</p>
<p>“That’s a shame. Because I just met you, and I can already tell you’re bright and self-confident, and kind, and it looks like you’re making a nice career for yourself.”</p>
<p>“If only they cared about any of that,” Eliot says. “I was the first person in my family to go to college. I had a full scholarship to Purdue and graduated with honors. They didn’t bother to go to my graduation.”</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>“Well, that’s their loss, isn’t it?” Maggie says. This time, when the music gathers in the air, it catches. Maggie feels the warmth in her veins that she’s beginning to recognize as magic. She sings, <em>I would not give you false hope, on this strange and mournful day, but the mother and child reunion is only a motion away. </em>It’s hard to do a dance number behind the wheel of a car, but they drum on the dashboard and roll down the windows to do their folk-reggae moves at the red lights. </p>
<p>“You know, I didn’t get to raise a weird kid,” Maggie says. “Don’t get me wrong, I love my kids more than the world and wouldn’t trade them for anything, and I’m sure having uptight little rule-followers made my life easier. But I was such an artsy, dreamy little kid. I kept waiting for one of them to steal my makeup and use it to repaint their bedroom, or to spend an entire summer building a mysterious art project in the backyard. I guess I just didn’t pass on that gene.”</p>
<p>“Maybe you did,” Eliot says, and Maggie can’t tell if he’s joking. “Maybe I was kidnapped by fairies and swapped for a rule follower.”</p>
<p>Maggie feels silly asking, “Are fairies real?” but it is that kind of night.</p>
<p>“Yes, and they are the fucking worst,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>5.</p>
<p>Zoey and Mo have finished a pot of coffee and all of the donuts it would be polite to eat before Mom and Eliot get to Zoey’s apartment. It’s a quirk that fell by the wayside when Mom was caught up in caring for Dad: she’s always late, and frequently because she gets lost on the way to places she’s been a million times. Zoey used to get upset when she was a kid, standing alone with the coach after the rest of the soccer team was long gone from practice, but she’s accepted the thirty-minute window before she should entertain the least bit of concern that the delay is anything more than Mom being Mom. </p>
<p>Mo has a look on her face, but no song in her heart, at least not yet. “Say it,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“What? Was I singing again?” </p>
<p>“No,” Zoey says. “I think I’m so used to people singing all of their feelings out that it’s started to annoy me when they don’t. Is that a sign that I’m losing my mind?”</p>
<p>“I’m pretty sure it’s the opposite,” Mo says. “But since you brought it up, I was just thinking it’s a good thing Max and Simon didn’t get caught up in this. Some feelings are not ready for magical group therapy.”</p>
<p>“You’re telling me,” Zoey says. </p>
<p>“So, Operation Avoid All Interesting Boys, how’s that treating you?”</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Zoey sighs. “Max called me on it last night after everyone left. He kept texting until he wore me down. He’s mad, and I can’t deal with Mad Max.” She hears what she’s said and snorts. And then she hears music. She might be glitching again. Her head was quiet last night once she was alone, enough that she forgot about Eliot’s bubble spell. She hopes this is how the bubble is supposed to work, and that Mo isn’t hearing her desperately warble an a cappella pop song. <em>If you’re going to stay then stay. He’s not going to change anyway. So tired of hearing all your boy problems. </em>But Mo picks up the lyrics in the pre-chorus, and it’s clear the song is about both of them. Zoey has wanted to step in so many times in the middle of a song and give her side of the story, and that’s what she’s getting now. <em>And I know that she’s right, and I should not be offended,</em> they’re both singing. <em>What’s worse, losing a lover or losing your best friend? </em>and they both know the answer.</p>
<p>Before Zoey can get answers about how Mo is navigating her Eliot lust around her Eddie iceberg, Mom is knocking on the door. Eliot is holding four giant coffee cups in a cardboard tray, and Mom has brought even more donuts. “Sorry we’re late, but we thought we should stop for breakfast,” Mom says.</p>
<p>Eliot adds, “And then we didn’t want to interrupt you in the middle of a number.” He sets the coffee tray down on the kitchen counter. “Sorry to hear about the boy problems.”</p>
<p>Mo starts to say something, but Eliot taps her lips. “Don’t say anything that Zoey could make you sing about instead.” He opens both donut boxes, chooses a chocolate frosted with sprinkles, and places it on top of one of the coffee cups, warming it with the steam. “Now. Let’s get to work.”</p>
<p>6.</p>
<p>“Here’s your first assignment. Make me sing a song,” Eliot says to Zoey, with all the authority of someone who came up with this in the car on the way here. Eliot is much cuter when Mo doesn’t dwell on what he might be like if she got the chance to get to know him. </p>
<p>“That’s not how it works,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“That’s not how you <em>think </em>it works,” Eliot says. “There’s never been a time when you had a little more control?”</p>
<p>“No!” Zoey says quickly, but she backtracks. “Not like you’re saying. Sometimes if I focus on someone, I’ll pay more attention when they start to sing and hear it more than I would have if I shoved them into the background. But I can’t make people sing on cue. I’ve tried. The only thing that works is a strong emotion from them.”</p>
<p>“So make me emotional enough to sing,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“How am I supposed to do that? I don’t even know you.”</p>
<p>Eliot shrugs and sips his coffee.</p>
<p>“Let him help you, honey,” Maggie says. Zoey looks at Mo as if desperate for backup, but Mo’s with Maggie here, and not just because every time Eliot blows across his coffee, all Mo can think about is his lips.</p>
<p>“Um,” Zoey starts. “The person you were singing about last night.”</p>
<p>“Nope,” Eliot interrupts. “Been there, sang that. Try again.”</p>
<p>“Any other rules I should know about?” Indignant is a good look on Zoey. “And why am I following your rules anyway? Who even <em>are </em>you? You’re just here out of the kindness of your heart, offering some two-day seminar in -” Zoey turns to her mom. “It was free, right? You didn’t pay him, did you?”</p>
<p>Maggie shakes her head.</p>
<p>Zoey keeps going, gaining momentum. “Which means there’s something you need from me, not that anyone asked what that is. We just let you strut into my apartment singing Cher songs so you can eat all the good donuts and tell me I have to do things that are impossible, and - and hit on my friend, who has a boyfriend by the way, did she mention Eddie? Eddie, who she would literally follow anywhere, which I know because she would not stop singing about it for, like, a week.”</p>
<p>“Nothing’s happened yet,” Eliot says, to Mo’s relief. “And nothing will happen unless both of us agree to let it. Believe it or not, I’m capable of looking down my pants and telling everything down there to shut up.” Eliot isn’t looking at Mo; his eyes are on the wall like the person he’s trying to convince is too far away to ever come back. </p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>There’s background music. Zoey got her song.</p>
<p><em>There are worse things I could do than go with a boy or two,</em> Eliot sings. Mo has attended a few impromptu gay <em>Grease </em>singalongs in her time, but she’s never seen anyone get the Stockard Channing mannerisms this right: the tilt and snap of his neck in the pauses between phrases and the brush of his hips along the walls and furniture that ends in a sultry lean. There’s a real rage behind, <em>Take cold showers every day and throw my life away for a dream that won’t come true. </em>But it’s in the brutal emotion of the last verse that Mo grows certain of her next move. <em>I don’t steal and I don’t lie, but I can feel and I can cry, a fact I’ll bet you never knew. </em></p>
<p>Eliot jolts out of character as soon as the final note fades away. “Well done,” he says to Zoey. “Let’s take a break. I think Mo and I have a song to discuss.”</p>
<p>Mo leaves Zoey alone with her mom and the second-tier donuts and leads Eliot across the hall to her own apartment. Eliot surveys the living room in a slow spin. “This is the same floor plan?”</p>
<p>“My aesthetic and Zoey’s are not the same,” Mo says.</p>
<p>“To say the least,” Eliot purrs, stroking the nap of Mo’s sofa so it lies flat and shiny. “I love it.” Mo can almost feel that hand sliding ever so slowly down her chest.</p>
<p>“So I -” Mo begins. she knows what Eliot wants to tell her, but not what she’ll say in return. There’s not even a song in her heart, only a knot of uncertainty.</p>
<p>“I texted my boyfriend last night when I got back to the hotel,” Eliot says. Has he mentioned a boyfriend before? “He told me that if I don’t at least try to seduce you, I’ll never hear the end of it.” </p>
<p>“I’m very easy to seduce,” Mo says, feeling her confidence surge. She can pretend that Eddie’s permission would sound just like Eliot’s boyfriend’s permission. “All you have to do is tell me you like me.”</p>
<p>“You? You radiate style. You’re magnetic. You have a voice like an angel and an ass for days. And on top of that, you’re the kind of friend who drops by in the middle of the night with wine to make sure everything is okay and refuses to leave even when you’re told it’s fine. Anyone who doesn’t want you isn’t <em>looking.</em>”</p>
<p>“Keep going,” Mo says, but before Eliot can build the tower of compliments higher, Mo is kissing him. Eliot has the softness of femme boys who are used to being taken, the kind that Mo has resigned herself to gazing at distantly while they run off with some over-gymmed butch thing who will forget their names by morning. Eliot laces his long fingers around the back of Mo’s neck, experienced enough to avoid tugging Mo’s hair extensions out of place. His care feels sexy. Mo tastes something warm and ancient on Eliot’s lips that she cannot place.</p>
<p>Eliot stops kissing but keeps his face close enough that Mo can feel his breath. “I wish you were who I came here for,” he says.</p>
<p>“Who knows? Maybe I am,” Mo replies.</p>
<p>“Not now,” Eliot says, “but tonight?” </p>
<p>“Tonight,” Mo echoes. “Absolutely tonight.”</p>
<p>7.</p>
<p>Zoey hums to herself as she cleans up breakfast, gathering the coffee cups and taping shut the box of leftover donuts. Despite every obstacle, Maggie has raised a competent adult; she sits back and beams, letting her daughter do the work. But Maggie’s pride can’t stop her from wishing Zoey could freeze in time. She is old enough and independent enough as it is.</p>
<p>“What are you singing?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>“Nothing in particular,” Zoey says. “I’m trying to stop <em>them </em>from singing.” She gestures irritably toward the door. “Or to drown them out if they do.”</p>
<p>“Does that work?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>“Never,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“It must be exhausting,” Maggie says. </p>
<p>“It is.” </p>
<p>Maggie remembers the first time Zoey entered a two-word-answer phase. At the age of ten, seemingly overnight, Zoey transformed from a bubbly little girl into a sullen pre-teen. Those periods of distance have ebbed and flowed throughout Zoey’s life. Maggie used to believe she’d grow out of them. Maybe she’ll get there when she’s forty.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Maggie hears music. The piano line and plucked violin strings sound far away at first, like an ice cream truck at the other end of the block, but draw nearer as Zoey begins to sing. <em>I never loved nobody fully. Always one foot on the ground. </em>She has to get to the chorus for the point of the song to become clear: <em>I hear in my mind all of these voices. I hear in my mind all of these words. I hear in my mind all of this music, and it breaks my heart. </em>There’s nothing in the song that Maggie doesn’t already know, but the song rises in intensity as Zoey repeats those phrases over and over. Maggie wants to hold her and let her cry, but she doesn’t know if it will help.</p>
<p>As the second verse builds into the chorus, Maggie feels the song spread to her. There’s no sensation of warmth and comfort like she got from Eliot last night. This is more like an itch in her throat. Her voice finds a harmony line and floats along it. She can hear Mo and Eliot in the hallway, singing too. She nods toward the door, and Zoey lets them in. The three of them surround Zoey, body and voice, until Zoey drops into an unexpected bridge. <em>All my friends say that of course it’s gonna get better, better, better, better. </em>But the song circles back into that longing first verse and chorus, and their voices soar, as if climbing over each other to help them all reach the top. </p>
<p>The song ends abruptly, with a chord that seems to bounce into the air. “Cool,” Zoey says. “That worked.”</p>
<p>“So that <em>was </em>intentional,” Eliot says. “What were you trying to do?”</p>
<p>“Get myself to sing,” Zoey says. “Because, okay. What we’re basically doing is running interaction tests in a white box scenario. Which, when you’re writing software, that’s what you do when you wrote something and you <em>think </em>you know what it’s actually going to do, so you isolate the new code in its own little room and see if it can keep up with what you need it to be doing, and how it needs to interact with all the other code. One of the things you do in white box testing is think about past bugs and make sure they’re not showing up again, and that the same fix works here as it did in the last batch of code where you had the problem. So I was thinking, there was this time a couple of months ago when I got really stressed out, and I was the one singing. I haven’t tried since, but I thought, maybe if you guys can hear me, that, um, part of the code would work again. And it did, and you guys all joined in, and maybe - I guess I’ve been thinking about this all along like it’s out of my control. But I’m trying to think more like this is code that I can fix.”</p>
<p>“Nerd,” Mo says, and she laughs, and they all laugh.</p>
<p>8.</p>
<p>Eliot takes Zoey aside, into her bedroom. She’s not afraid that anything gross is going to happen, but his demeanor makes her nervous. He shuts the door behind him and speaks softly. “Listen. I put up a little wall of silence so your mom and your friend can’t hear this, but you deserve to know. I’m required to make you an offer tomorrow. I’m sure you’re not surprised that this was a recruitment trip, to see if you have a raw talent for magic, which you clearly do. If you accepted the offer, we’d bring you to Brakebills, and you’d take an entrance exam, which I have no doubt you’d pass. But when I make that offer, I think you should decline it.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Zoey says, drawing out the word, her teeth on edge.</p>
<p>“Don’t get me wrong,” Eliot says. “You’d be able to do everything they’d throw at you there, and you might learn a lot. But you have a job you’re good at, and people who care about you here. I don’t think you need Brakebills as much as - It’s not a good time for someone like you to be there.” He’s talking around something, cautious to the point of fear. </p>
<p>“Thanks for telling me,” Zoey says. “Thanks for being honest.”</p>
<p>Eliot pauses as if measuring his words. “I’m not promising this will keep you safe. There are people who don’t like telepaths wandering around where the University can’t control them. But it’ll keep you out of the spotlight.”</p>
<p>Zoey nods. “Will you get in trouble for not recruiting me?”</p>
<p>“Nothing I can’t handle,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“So what do you do now?” Zoey asks. “Just poof back to wherever you came from?”</p>
<p>“No, teleportation is much more difficult and much less reliable than commercial air travel,” Eliot says. “And my flight isn’t until tomorrow. So with your permission, I’d like to keep helping you debug yourself until then.”</p>
<p>Zoey is on the verge of agreeing and skipping back into her living room, but instead, she adds, “And hook up with Mo.”</p>
<p>“With your blessing,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“You don’t want my blessing. My blessing sends everything right to hell.”</p>
<p>“If you say so,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>Zoey brings the conversation back to business. “So what’s my next assignment, Mr. Miyagi?”</p>
<p>“Hmm.” His eyes flutter with concentration. “Have you ever gotten someone to stop a song?”</p>
<p>She’s about to protest again that nothing she does can affect her powers, but she remembers the night with Max right before her father died and tells the truth. “There was a time when I told someone - someone who knows about me, someone who’s not here -”</p>
<p>“Boy Problems?” Eliot interrupts.</p>
<p>Zoey rolls her eyes to confirm that. “I asked him to think about something else, and his song changed. And then I asked him to clear his mind and not think about anything, and he stopped singing.”</p>
<p>“How long do you think you can keep that up?” Eliot asks.</p>
<p>“I don’t know. I haven’t tried since then,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“Want to find out?”</p>
<p>He sounds so eager that Zoey can’t help but laugh. “What do I do? Change the subject whenever I hear a song coming on?”</p>
<p>“If you think that’s what will work,” Eliot says. </p>
<p>When Zoey was in college, she had a Discrete Math TA who used to say that when someone came up with a creative solution to a difficult problem. It didn’t mean you were right, just that she thought what you were doing was interesting. Within two weeks of the start of the semester, four people had switched to a different discussion group because it drove them too crazy that the TA wasn’t <em>helping </em>them, which she found out because one of them tried to recruit her to switch while also hitting on her. The awkward pick-up attempt made her decide to stick with her original TA, to avoid the guy. As the semester went on, Zoey went into each session more determined to hear <em>If you think that will work. </em>Just before midterms, she got the question she realized was one step better: “Why do you think that will work?” Zoey’s hands and voice shook while she walked the TA and her discussion group through the algorithm. She didn’t like being put on the spot. After the session, the TA took Zoey aside and showed her the sample solution in the teaching guide, which was significantly longer and resorted to a bunch of clunky counterfactuals. “You beat the professor on this one,” the TA said. </p>
<p>Those words ring in Zoey’s ears when she’s stuck in a patch of code she can’t write her way out of, when the bug report keeps coming back and she can’t find the error, when the run times are inexplicably slow. At least once in her life, she’s pulled out a miracle, and she can do it again - and someone will notice. A few times, Joan has made her feel like that TA did, like she’s worthy of the sisterhood of women in tech. Now, she’s feeling that solidarity from Eliot, even though there’s nothing so obvious that they have in common.</p>
<p>With their plans made, they return to Zoey’s living room. Eliot tells Mo and Mom that the next assignment is a secret. The room is awkwardly quiet for a minute or two, and then there’s some stilted conversation about everyone’s jobs. Zoey feels some frustration bubble up from Eliot in the form of a few clashing guitar chords. She summons the courage to talk over him and ask what he thinks of San Francisco. It’s his first time here, and he hasn’t seen much, and he’s <em>not singing. </em>Zoey exhales, and her shoulders relax. </p>
<p>Mom, who has lived here her whole life, displays her museum-docent-level knowledge of the city. Her story of getting arrested at an AIDS vigil for refusing to get out of the road is old to Zoey but new to Mo and Eliot. They look at Mom with an adoration and respect that even a song couldn’t help Zoey understand. Zoey hears a hum in the air and scrambles for a change of tone. She feigns embarrassment: “Oh, my God, Mom, not this one again.” </p>
<p>The music stops, but Zoey was too harsh. The room fills with a tense hush, and Mo in particular looks poised for a lecture. But instead Mo says, “You’re trying to keep us from singing, aren’t you? That’s your <em>please don’t sing, I have my own problems </em>face.”</p>
<p>Zoey hesitates, unsure of whether she’s allowed to give the game away. Eliot says, “You got it.”</p>
<p>“Maybe if we were doing something other than talking, it would be easier,” Mom says. “Maybe you could get out that game you used to bring over to the house? The one with the cute sushi?” <em>The game you used to bring over when Dad was just starting to get sick, </em>Mom doesn’t add.</p>
<p>“Is that cheating?” Zoey asks Eliot.</p>
<p>“There’s no such thing as cheating at magic,” Eliot says. “Magic <em>is </em>cheating.”</p>
<p>Zoey gets out the Sushi Go Party box. Soon, everyone is too busy figuring out the rules to have the kind of emotions that would spur them into song. At first, the game just feels like fun, and Zoey sits on the verge of asking whether this is the best use of everyone’s time. But once everyone has gotten comfortable with the gameplay and started formulating strategies, the whispers of music keep darting in. When they do, Zoey redirects whoever seems most likely to break into song, with a taunt or a comment about strategy. Board games aren’t always going to shut people up when she needs them to, but distracting them will, in general. At work, she can remind people to get back to work. If she’s having dinner with her family, she can say something about the food. There’s always some excuse for people to bury their feelings.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Zoey’s mom destroys the rest of them in the third game, quietly collecting the card sets that everyone else has ignored and messing up their multipliers. Outwardly, Mom cheers for her victory, but Zoey hears a layer of wistful guitars under the momentary glee. Zoey could squash it, but she suspects the song will be about Dad. She lets her guard down and lets her mom sing. <em>I took my love, took it down, </em>Mom sings. <em>I climbed a mountain, and I turned around. </em>It’s the song that Zoey has been waiting to hear from her, needing to hear. <em>Well, I’ve been afraid of changing because I’ve built my life around you. Time makes you bolder, even children get older, and I’m getting older too. </em>The point of the song should be obvious, but as the chorus changes subtly, Zoey grows less certain of its meaning. Mom has built her life around Zoey and David as much as she has around Dad, if not more. </p>
<p>Zoey leaves the question open and hugs her mom instead. It’s the more important thing.</p>
<p>9. </p>
<p>Mo and Zoey are walking to their neighborhood burrito place to get lunch for everyone. Zoey has an assignment: pay attention to the singing strangers and see if she notices a pattern to whose songs she hears. Mo, at her side and able to hear what she hears, has inherited the assignment, too. While they wait for the light to change at the end of the first block, a guy breaks into “Foxy Lady” and struts across the street as his inner thoughts become more real than oncoming traffic. “So this is every day for you?” Mo asks Zoey.</p>
<p>“Yeah, and a lot of it is always this gross,” she says.</p>
<p>Before they reach the burrito place, they’ve witnessed brief performances of “Brick House,” “Pony,” and a reggaeton song in Spanish that’s mostly <em>mamita, mamita, mamita.</em> None of those are particularly directed at Zoey, although the chorus of “Show me your pussy, show it to me” as they get in line seems to be all about her. Mo grimaces, and Zoey rolls her eyes like she barely registers this stuff anymore.</p>
<p>They get to the front of the line, and Mo orders and pays. The cashier studies her debit card a few moments longer than necessary, then asks to see her ID. He holds the two cards next to each other and smirks. When he hands them back, along with Mo’s receipt, he says, “Enjoy your meal, <em>sir,</em>” like he’s solved an astonishing mystery by reading her driver’s license.</p>
<p>“Excuse me?” Zoey cuts in. “I mean, really.”</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Mo says, putting a hand on her shoulder.</p>
<p>They find a place to stand near the pick-up counter. “So this is every day for you?” Zoey asks.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>At first, Mo thinks the loud punk chords are someone else’s lunchtime rage anthem, but the song is hers. She feels crazy at first, shouting, <em>Your tells are so obvious, shoulders too broad for a girl, </em>in the middle of a crowded restaurant, but the other customers keep talking and milling around like they can’t hear her. Zoey can hear her, though, and she’s listening. When Mo gets to the painful lines in the bridge, she thinks Zoey’s outside the song, a sympathetic audience to <em>You want them to see you like they see every other girl, but they just see a faggot, they hold their breath not to catch the sick. </em>But Zoey shouts along with the chorus, leading Mo in a ragged rock stomp and shimmy. <em>Rough surf on the coast, I wish I could have spent the whole day alone with you, with you, with you. </em></p>
<p>The song ends when a girl behind the counter calls their order number. Walking home is downhill, faster than the way there. A guy walking his dog launches into “Wild Thing” as they walk by, and Zoey hums back, <em>Rough surf on the coast, I wish I could have spent the whole day alone.</em> Her song - their song - takes over, drowning out the creep with the dog. </p>
<p>10.</p>
<p>While Zoey and Mo are out getting lunch, Eliot pulls out his phone to find exactly the number of messages to be expected after an entire morning of ignoring his phone. None are panicked; people know he’s working. Most of the emails are reminders of small bureaucratic tasks for the start of the new Brakebills semester. He’s teaching three courses, all of which he has sort of prepped for. When he began teaching, he thought he’d be one of those laid-back disaster professors who comes to class visibly high and expects no real work, but it turns out that deadlines and challenging assignments are satisfying ways to separate the students with real promise from the ones who should be mind-wiped and returned to normal society immediately. One of the courses is the first dedicated Musicomancy elective that Brakebills has offered since the eighties, when any semblance of magical whimsy fell out of fashion. Eliot would love to bring it back into style, but first, he has to submit his syllabus to the Dean.</p>
<p>There are texts from Margo, mostly demanding details about Mo, and a blurry but recognizably dirty selfie from Charlton, who lived in Eliot’s head long enough that he acclimated instantly to Earth’s technology once he was released back into the world. But Fen is the one who’s been at it all morning, texting him meticulous updates on the bridge between New Fillory and Earth. It’s stable, or maybe only in one direction, or hooray they found a workaround, or never mind, several of the test rabbits exploded in transit. As a constant interruption, her updates would have been insufferable, but as a novelistic record of her morning, they’re cute and informative. Eliot and Fen haven’t finished forgiving each other, but they’ve made progress. He wonders if the way he loves her is the way you’re supposed to love your family.</p>
<p>“Who are you talking to with that smile on your face?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>“Best friend, boyfriend, ex-wife,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Ex-wife? Now, there’s a story.”</p>
<p>“There is,” Eliot says. “I can’t tell you. Magic rules.”</p>
<p>“So which one of them was the one you were singing about last night?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>“None of them,” Eliot says. “Although any of them could have been. I’m great at hurting people and regretting it later.”</p>
<p>Maggie pats his hand. “We all are.”</p>
<p>Zoey and Mo return with lunch, which includes not only the Mission-style burritos that they’ve hyped up beyond all reason but a case of Mexican beer and a bag of limes. Each burrito could feed a family of four. Eliot’s memories of past hunger intrude and gnaw at him. The beer won’t do much to help him forget, but it’s a good start.</p>
<p>“Zoey was not kidding about the sexual harassment,” Mo is saying, although Eliot is mostly watching a droplet of salsa trail down her hand and wrist. Eliot has never been with anyone like her, and that is saying something. The anticipation is making him want to crawl out of his skin. It’s delicious.</p>
<p>“Were they really harassing anyone, though?” Zoey says. “None of them said anything to the people they were horndogging after. They just thought about it.” Zoey taps a lime wedge expertly into the neck of her beer bottle. “One of the things I’ve learned from my powers is, as often as men say inappropriate things to women? Even more of them are managing to control themselves. Which makes me think even less of the ones who don’t. Like that cashier at the burrito place. Oh my God. Why wouldn’t you let me yell at him?”</p>
<p>“It’s worse to make a scene,” Mo says. “Trust me.”</p>
<p>“What happened?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Mo shrugs. “Standard everyday misgendering.” She’s downplaying her feelings, but a music cue swoops in to betray her. <em>I wish I could tie you up in my shoes, make you feel unpretty too. I was told I was beautiful, but what does that mean to you? </em>The music sweeps Eliot up. He remembers the irresistible pleasure when Quentin used to conjure up cross-dimensional group numbers, unaware of how much power he was harnessing. Eliot doesn’t want this song to be about him - doesn’t want any more songs about him at all - but he keeps getting pulled back. He picks up the pre-chorus: <em>My outsides look cool. My insides are blue. Every time I think I’m through, it’s because of you. </em>Fuck Quentin for squirming his way into this song. Fuck him for being everywhere and still gone.</p>
<p>Maggie chimes into the second verse: <em>I used to be so cute to me, just a little bit skinny. </em>Eliot doesn’t know what her insecurities are, but Zoey zones in on her when she starts singing. Zoey is decidedly an observer to this one, not part of the choreography. Even though he’s part of the number, himself, Eliot tries to watch from the outside and discern what her magic is doing. Each of the three of them is using the same song to talk about something different. It’s a group number, but they’re all in their own heads. That makes sense if her powers are a conduit for telepathy. </p>
<p>It also means that she could do more. She’s very powerful, perhaps too powerful for organized magic. Brakebills would cultivate the wrong parts of her abilities. They’d treat the musical numbers as a crutch and train her in “pure” telepathy. They would cut the thread of whimsy that is stitching her sanity together. The system is starting to change - they let Eliot in, and hell, they put Penny in charge for a while - but they are tolerated and feared. Kady and Julia might have connections to the hedge witches of the Bay Area, but those communities have their own destructive politics. He thinks Zoey will gain more ground on her own. But he’ll let her decide.</p>
<p>When the song ends, Eliot asks, “Does that happen a lot? More than one person in the same song?”</p>
<p>“Sometimes,” Zoey says. “It’s hard to tell when they’re just singing backup.”</p>
<p>“That might be something to think about. When the group numbers happen, and how you might be able to pull people into them,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Mm-hmm,” Zoey says. She seems more interested in lunch than in continuing to troubleshoot her powers. While they all dig into their burritos, she asks, “Do you think you’ll have time to go sightseeing this afternoon?” And there she is, being polite about kicking him out for the rest of the day.</p>
<p>“Honey, do you really think that’s the best use of his time?” Maggie chimes in.</p>
<p>“Magic can be exhausting,” Eliot says. “We can pick up again in the morning if you want.”</p>
<p>Zoey’s whole body sighs with relief. </p>
<p>“Well, then, is there anything in particular you wanted to see?”</p>
<p>“I don’t know,” Eliot says. “I didn’t study my guidebook before I got here. Maybe the gay history stuff? You have some of that here, right?”</p>
<p>“There’s some things in the Castro,” Mo says. “A Harvey Milk memorial and a museum, I think? I’ve never actually gone to see any of it.”</p>
<p>“You can join me if you want,” Eliot says. He finds Mo’s hand and covers it with his own. </p>
<p>“I’d love that,” Mo says.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>They’re cleaning up lunch and getting ready to go when Eliot hears a frisson of music centering around Maggie. He doesn’t have Zoey’s telepathy, but if he had to guess, Maggie is annoyed that Zoey has declined an afternoon of magical training. He captures the room’s ambient magic with a few discreet gestures, amplifying the song and spreading it among the four of them. The instrumental intro vamps, and Eliot realizes he has to kick it off. <em>I want you, thin fingers, I wanted you, thin fingernails. And when you bend backwards, I wanted you, I needed you, oh, oh, to make me better. </em>It’s definitely his magic and not Zoey’s now: the lyrics are less literal and more of a mood, and the room fills with a warm wash of group-number solidarity so intense that the sunlight through the windows seems to change color. </p>
<p>The verses pass from one singer to another. They look dazed and perplexed when they sing. They probably don’t know this song. Eliot wouldn’t either if he hadn’t lain in Quentin’s empty room in the days after Quentin died, listening to the sad nerd music on his phone. His mind tells him he can hear Quentin’s voice singing harmony in the chorus, although he knows it’s an illusion. He tamps down his imagination as well as he can to focus on the real voices converging. <em>But we’re not so starry-eyed anymore, like the perfect paramour you were in your letters. And won’t it all just come around to make you, let it all unbreak you. </em>Those other voices drop out from the bridge, and Eliot sings that part for himself. <em>And all I wanted was a sliver to call mine. And all I wanted was a shimmer in your shine to make me bright.</em></p>
<p>The others are grinning as the last chorus ramps up, drumming on their knees to amplify the sound. Eliot feels the lightness of something formerly trapped that has now escaped him. He’s sure that’s his imagination, too.</p>
<p>Maggie claps her hands together. “That was beautiful.”</p>
<p>“Thanks,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Do you think I’ll be able to control it that much?” Zoey asks.</p>
<p>Eliot didn’t feel like he had much control, but there’s no need to admit that. “With practice? Sure.” There’s a beat of silence, like no one wants to be the first to hang up the phone. “So did you want me to hang around, or…?”</p>
<p>“Same time tomorrow, coffee and donuts?” Zoey says. There is widespread assent.</p>
<p>Mo says she needs to freshen up for a minute, and Eliot has been around this particular block enough times to know that she means she needs to stuff some clean underwear and a toothbrush into a bag that is clearly too small to be an overnight bag. Eliot waits in Zoey’s living room with Maggie. “I’d invite you to come along too,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>Maggie laughs. “On your date? No. Have a good time. I’ll see you in the morning. Will you want me to pick you up from your hotel again?”</p>
<p>“Only if things go very, very badly tonight,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Well, then, I hope I don’t get a call,” she says.</p>
<p>Eliot wants to give her a hug. It’s a new experience with a parental figure, but one he could get used to. Still, he hesitates, making the excuse in his mind that her daughter is right there. </p>
<p>Mo returns in a bright pink sweater over a vintage floral dress, carrying an insufficient handbag. She’s covered some of her androgyny in makeup, and Eliot would never tell her that the femininity makes her less alluring to him. She’s still magnetic, and he can artfully smear it off later.</p>
<p>As Eliot and Mo leave together, Maggie stops him, and under the pretense of saying goodbye, whispers, “Be safe. Don’t drink too much.” Eliot completes the hug he wanted.</p>
<p>They take a Lyft to the Castro. The self-directed walking tour of queer history is shorter than expected: the Harvey Milk memorial is just a plaque on an old building, the Holocaust memorial a sculpture in a sliver of street-corner park, the museum a half an hour of old photos. There’s an AIDS memorial, but it’s three miles away in the wrong direction, and Eliot has had enough of paying tribute to the dead for today. They decide to stroll up Market Street toward Eliot’s hotel downtown. Mo’s body is the sight that Eliot really wants to see.</p>
<p>“So tell me about Eddie,” Eliot says as they walk.</p>
<p>“Are we talking about our boyfriends? Here I was thinking we were going to pretend they don’t exist.”</p>
<p>“You’re going to think about him either way,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“I thought you said you couldn’t read minds,” Mo says.</p>
<p>“I can read a room,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Eddie. He’s - he’s hot, and a fabulous dancer, and he likes <em>me, </em>and does there really need to be more than that? Yes. There does. He’s a person who wants to experience everything. That’s why he’s doing this whole cruise ship, not only because it’s a job. I want to follow him everywhere, but I don’t think he wants me to. He doesn’t want me to be everything for him, and that’s liberating, maybe, except I don’t want to be less than everything.”</p>
<p>Eliot takes her hand, not sure how to comfort her, worried that this is where they call off the whole wild night.</p>
<p>Mo pivots. “Enough about me. Tell me about your mystery man.”</p>
<p>“Charlton?” Eliot is going to pretend Quentin isn’t a potential answer to this question. It’s hard to talk about Charlton without running afoul of classified magic matters, though. “He sort of… saw all the worst of me and kept chasing me until I let him in. And he made me realize how much I like being chased.” That might be enough, but Eliot keeps thinking of more. “He’s funny without trying, he’s up for the most ridiculousthings, he has no time for my bullshit and will calmly tell me when I am full of it, he - I usually get stuck on the people who are worst for me, and he might actually be good for me.”</p>
<p>Mo swings their arms back and forth between them. “So we both have good people to go back to. And not think about for the rest of the night.”</p>
<p>Eliot kisses her cheek, and she beams back at him.</p>
<p>“You know what’s funny?” Mo says. “I keep expecting to break into song.”</p>
<p>“You can sing if you want to,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>“Let’s save it for the hotel room,” Mo says. “But then, would you? Start a song?”</p>
<p>“I’d love to,” Eliot says.</p>
<p>When they get to the hotel, Eliot intends to keep that promise immediately but gets caught up in the excitement of having Mo to himself. They kiss first in the strip of hallway between the bathroom and closet, then on the bed. Eliot slides Mo’s sweater down her arms and nips at her shoulders. She is soft in all the right places. He doesn’t know what to expect when she takes the rest of her clothes off, and he likes that. </p>
<p>She’s kneeling in his lap and expertly untying his tie. He’d love for her to stay on top of him and have her way with him. Eliot doesn’t mind calling the shots in bed, but too much of the same thing fatigues him, no matter how much fun it is in theory. But if he wants to be held down and fucked raw, she won’t read his mind. He circles his hips so she can feel him hard against her. “Do you top?” he asks. “Because I’d love for you to fuck me.”</p>
<p>She pulls back, quizzical, stretching his tie toward her chest.</p>
<p>“Unless that’s a gender boundary you don’t want to cross,” he says, contrite.</p>
<p>“No, that’s just… not a request I get very often.” She snaps the tie off his neck, tosses it away, and leans into his lips. “But I really want to give it to you.” </p>
<p>They roll around, undressing haphazardly. He has his pants and vest off, and his shirt half buttoned; she’s thrown her leggings on the floor and bunched her dress at her hips. Her erection stretches the leopard print of briefs not designed to contain it. He tugs the waistband down, and her cock bobs against the round slope of her belly. He rolls her briefs down her thighs and runs his hands back up to her hips. “You’re so fucking sexy,” he says. “You’re fucking hot, and I want you in me.”</p>
<p>“Keep going,” she says. She blows a kiss and gets a condom out of the front pocket of her handbag. </p>
<p>“Sexy <em>and </em>prepared,” he says, lying back and spreading his legs apart.</p>
<p>She kitten-crawls up his chest. “And what about you?”</p>
<p>“Me? I’m always ready.”</p>
<p>They shift around until she has a good angle and eases inside him. He’s a little tight, and her cock is thick inside him, the way he wants it. She is taking her sweet beautiful time, too. He’s fighting the urge to stroke himself harder, not wanting to rush her. He tells her how beautiful he is, how much he wants her. She fucks him until his back cramps, and they scoot their way up the bed, laughing. She has him up against the headboard, making the bedframe bang against the wall. “I’m close,” she says, and he’s glad, aching for his own release. But he wants her to never stop. He watches her come, sweaty and soft, mouth wide. </p>
<p>She rests her head on his chest, and for a moment he thinks she’s going to pass out on him. Instead, she reaches down to his cock, spreading his pre-come over the shaft. He doesn’t hold back and lets her finish him off fast. His orgasm is not the point anymore, but it is still nice to have one. “Tell me I get to suck this huge, beautiful thing later,” she says, giving his softening cock one last stroke.</p>
<p>“Whatever you want,” he says, and means it.</p>
<p>He holds her for a minute or two before getting up to rinse the lube and come off of himself. It’s still the middle of the afternoon. He still owes her a song. The first tune his brain throws at him is “Afternoon Delight,” but he kicks that out in favor of something a little more sensual. He leaves his shirt open, but he grabs clean underwear from his suitcase, not wanting to dance around with his dick out. By the time he returns to the bed, she’s fixed herself up a bit, too: leggings back on and a fresh coat of lipstick. </p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>The music kicks in at just the right moment, but then, he set this up in advance. <em>Go on and close the curtains, ‘cause all we need is candlelight, </em>Eliot sings. Mo is up and dancing with him halfway through the first verse, and she takes over the melody in the chorus. <em>Save tonight, and fight the break of dawn. Come tomorrow, tomorrow I’ll be gone. </em>Eliot’s innate abilities might lie in physical magic, but he feels more in his element making people sing. All of the most powerful magic he’s experienced has come from joy and love. </p>
<p>The song reaches its final fade of <em>Tomorrow I’ll be gone, tomorrow I’ll be gone, </em>and that sinks in. In another lifetime, they might have become something. In this life, they were only destined to have a few days together. It’s okay to let this go. This time, it doesn’t mean he’s giving up.</p>
<p>11. </p>
<p>Maggie’s house echoes and rattles with emptiness in the morning. Even when he’d lost most of his control of his body, Mitch would wake up before her, full of sunshine before she was conscious. Now, there’s no one left to even try to greet her. She puts music on while she showers and gets dressed, so she won’t have to hear the silence. </p>
<p>Last night, she downloaded one of those dating apps, just to browse. There are a lot of men out there. Some of them are good-looking, and some of them seem nice. A few might even be both. Before she went to bed, she deleted the profile she’d made, but she left the app on her phone. She’s not ready to use it yet, but she wants to keep the reminder that someday she will be.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Maggie is the last person to arrive at Zoey’s apartment. The kids have already finished breakfast and drunk most of the coffee, but they’ve saved her a maple bacon cinnamon roll. Before she’s taken a bite, she’s singing. It’s a song that David was briefly obsessed with in high school; she had to hear it a dozen times a day for a month before he downloaded something new to put on repeat. Now that it’s a precious memory of a time in her son’s life that she’ll never get back, it’s not nearly so annoying. <em>I won’t take everything good and move it away. I won’t be left dancing alone to songs from the past. </em></p>
<p>Mo picks up the counterpoint vocals, and there might be something in the song that’s about her, too. Or about Zoey, and what they both need her to hear. <em>I won’t get mad when you say things are getting too hard. I won’t make all of your love so scared to come through our yard. </em>There’s not much choreography to this one, just a general drawing closer to Zoey, until Maggie’s arms are around her daughter.</p>
<p>After the song ends, Zoey keeps hugging Maggie for a few moments before releasing her to let her have breakfast. “Sorry, we had that one set up before you got here,” Zoey explains. “Eliot wanted me to see how fast I could get you to sing after you walked in. I’m not sure it was fair, though. You had things on your mind. It might have just been a song you would have sung anyway.”</p>
<p>“Or it might be progress,” Eliot says. “Don’t discount that.”</p>
<p>“Honey, he’s right. Don’t discount it,” Maggie says.</p>
<p>Zoey might be rolling her eyes because she refuses to believe she’s doing better, or she might want to not hear it from her mom. </p>
<p>12.</p>
<p>While Mo and Mom clean up breakfast, Eliot takes Zoey into her bedroom for another secret conversation. “This is where I officially invite you to take the entrance exam for Brakebills University,” he says.</p>
<p>“And this is where I thank you for the offer, but I’m not interested in grad school right now,” Zoey says, playing her role and also telling the truth. </p>
<p>“Well, with that out of the way, I have something for you,” Eliot says. “No guarantee that it will work - I cobbled it together out of a few existing spells. But you know how, when you get a song stuck in your head, sometimes you can force it out by singing another song?” He takes a beaded bracelet out of his pocket. He probably bought it at his hotel’s gift shop, but it’s pretty. “This is a charm,” he says. “Go ahead and put it on.”</p>
<p>She slips on the bracelet. She doesn’t know what she’s expecting to feel, but it doesn’t make her feel anything special at all. </p>
<p>“Now, when you get a really intrusive song at a really bad time, you can activate the charm,” Eliot says. “Sing this under your breath.” </p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>Zoey laughs when she figures out what song it is, which she does before Eliot begins singing. She doesn’t really know the words, except that she does, in time to join him a few lines into the first verse. <em>So I play along when I hear that favorite song. I’m gonna be the one who gets it right. </em>The choreography gets pretty involved: a softshoe gimmick where Eliot shows off a pattern of moves and Zoey mimics them, up until the chorus where they dance in sync. <em>But I don’t feel like dancing when the old Joanna plays. My heart could take a chance, but my two feet can’t find a way. </em>The bracelet warms around Zoey’s wrist. The magic must be here in the chorus. She got the message, so she could stop there. She’s having too much fun, though. Her powers are fun when she relaxes into them, and that might be his point, more than giving her the charm bracelet. </p>
<p>When the song ends, she says, “So that’s it? You’re heading back?”</p>
<p>“My flight’s in a few hours,” Eliot says. “Your mom already offered me a ride.”</p>
<p>“That’s nice of her,” Zoey says.</p>
<p>“I wish I could ask you to keep in touch and let me know how it goes,” he says. “But we’re both better off if I’m able to say I don’t have any knowledge of you.”</p>
<p>“I get it. Magic is like a trade secret.”</p>
<p>“Close enough,” he says.</p>
<p>“Well, thanks for taking all this time with me,” Zoey says. “I think it helped.”</p>
<p>“It was fun for me too,” he says.</p>
<p>13.</p>
<p>Mo is hanging around Zoey’s kitchen because going back to her own apartment would mean going back to the real world. Zoey keeps looking at her expectantly, as if waiting for a song. “How long did he say it was going to be before the magic bubble wore off?” Mo asks.</p>
<p>“He wasn’t sure,” Zoey says. “Probably an hour or two, maybe a whole day.”</p>
<p>“Okay,” Mo says, and they return to silence, waiting for someone to sing.</p>
<p>“You had a good time last night?” Zoey says, finally.</p>
<p>“Yes, I did.” Mo fully intends not to go on, but she’s jumping out of her skin with it. “If you start feeling bad about yourself, I highly recommend a hot boy who won’t stop telling you how beautiful you are.”</p>
<p>“Even if you know you’re never going to see him again?”</p>
<p>“Especially if you know you’re never going to see him again,” Mo says. “No complications.”</p>
<p>“No complications,” Zoey says, faking contemplation. “I should try that sometime, shouldn’t I?”</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>“It’s an idea,” Mo says. She hears music. She has a Tina wig in her apartment somewhere, but there’s no time; she’s going to have to run with what she’s got, which is yesterday’s outfit and yesterday’s hair. <em>You must understand that the touch of your hand makes my pulse react. </em>Mo has performed this song in the shower and in front of her bedroom mirror a thousand times, but this is far more polished than her home-brewed choreography. <em>What’s love got to do, got to do with it? What’s love but a secondhand emotion? </em>Is it an insult to Miss Turner to sing an ironic song earnestly? Unless the song isn’t about Eliot at all. <em>I’ve been taking on a new direction, but I have to say, I’ve been thinking about my own protection. It scares me to feel this way. </em>At the end of the bridge, the music fades out for a moment, like a phone briefly losing its data signal while streaming. As Mo repeats the final chorus, the backing track cuts in and out, until she’s singing a cappella.</p>
<p>“I guess that’s it for the magic bubble,” she says.</p>
<p>14.</p>
<p>Maggie and Eliot get caught in a Sunday morning traffic snag on the way to the airport. They left earlier than planned, so he’s not worried about missing his flight. “You don’t have some magic spell so we can fly over the gridlock?”</p>
<p>“Not without causing widespread destruction.” It sounds like he has experienced this firsthand. He’s enmeshed in a vast world of rules and possibilities that Maggie will never touch.</p>
<p>But he’s a person, too. She asks, “So you had fun last night?”</p>
<p>“I had fun all weekend,” Eliot says. “I enjoyed meeting your family. It was a nice break from… everything.”</p>
<p>“I’ve been thinking about having a little fling,” she ventures. “I don’t think I’m ready to fall in love with someone else yet. I don’t know when I will be. But I could stand to feel good about myself again. Do you think - do you think that’s a good start?”</p>
<p>“If you’re ready for it,” he says. “Except you won’t know you’re ready for it, so you might as well try.”</p>
<p>She tries to get that to sink in. “The first thing they tell you when your husband gets a diagnosis like Mitch’s is, grief has its own timeline,” she says. “The weird part is, I expected that timeline to be so much slower. My life is going to go on, and I want to figure out what I’m going to do with it. Even if it scandalizes my kids.”</p>
<p>“Your daughter could use some scandal,” Eliot says, making Maggie laugh.</p>
<p>“But you know that, don’t you?” Maggie says. “You lost someone.”</p>
<p>He nods. “It’s been about a year.”</p>
<p>“The one from the Cher song?”</p>
<p>“Obviously,” he says. </p>
<p>“How long were you together?” Maggie asks.</p>
<p>“About fifty years,” Eliot says. He explains before she can express her shock. “There was a time loop thing. We were together until <em>I </em>died, ironically enough. And then the thing looped back, and he wanted to try, to stay together in the real world, and I panicked. He would have given me another chance, but before I could fix it, he died. No do-overs available.”</p>
<p>“But you moved on,” Maggie says.
</p>
<p>“I kept waking up in the morning,” he says. “Well, sometimes early afternoon.”</p>
<p>“And met someone else?”</p>
<p>“We’d already met,” Eliot says. “And loving Charlton doesn’t mean I stopped loving Quentin. I think I’m going to have to love him forever and live with that.”</p>
<p>Maggie turns that over in her head while she navigates a merge around a stalled car. The traffic opens up, and she floors it to the airport. As Eliot goes to the trunk to get his suitcase, Maggie follows him and gives him a long goodbye hug. “Let me know when you land in New York,” she says. “And then - how it goes. With everything.”</p>
<p>“I will,” he says. These brief connections often lose their fire, but Maggie believes that in the moment, they both intend to make the effort.</p>
<p>
  <iframe></iframe>
</p>
<p>The car is too quiet without him. Maggie connects her Bluetooth and finds a preset playlist, Songs You May Like. The first song is one she’s never heard before, a soothing modern folk song. A few bars in, she recognizes Eliot’s voice as the one singing. <em>I’ve got a good mother, and her voice is what keeps me here. </em>Other voices weave into the second verse, Zoey’s and David’s. <em>You could say I’m hard to hold, but if you knew me, you’d know I’ve got a good father, and his strength is what makes me cry. </em></p>
<p>Maggie hears other people in the mix, floating in and out of the lyric, each distinct. Emily, Max, Mo. Then, people she hasn’t seen in years, frozen in her mind as her kids’ childhood playmates, middle school best friends, teenage sweethearts. The college friend of David’s who followed him home for Winter Break and stayed with them for three weeks, no questions asked. The chorus of now-grown children surrounds her, all assuring her, <em>I’ve never wanted anything so bad. </em>As Maggie drives, she grows aware that the song could not possibly be this long. The verses repeat in different combinations of voices, constantly refreshing itself and making itself new.</p>
<p>She pulls into the garage. She parks the car and leaves it running, needing to hear the end of the song. It drifts to a close with Zoey and David harmonizing on one last <em>Feet on ground, heart in hand. </em>The silence it leaves is profound but energizing. Maggie turns off the engine and goes inside, knowing her house will not be so quiet.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>James Taylor - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlOphPrBRbw">Fire and Rain</a><br/>Cher - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBPwQK2oV10">
Prince - </a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMLP3ckabt4">Kiss</a> <br/>Paul Simon - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsoM8rGhY9A">Mother and Child Reunion</a> <br/>Carly Rae Jepsen - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsCaMTa0fO4">Boy Problems</a> <br/>Stockard Channing/Grease soundtrack - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfKChP8kQww">There Are Worse Things I Could Do</a><br/>Regina Spektor - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjEmPS-yd_8">Fidelity</a><br/>Fleetwood Mac - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMBUNkSxbQs">Landslide</a><br/>Against Me! - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eDJnhl_2d3k">Transgender Dysphoria Blues</a><br/>TLC - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTH-EbZyuYI">Unpretty</a><br/>The Decemberists - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LsWZL0WbGY">Make You Better</a><br/>Eagle Eye Cherry - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYDvmg4vGNQ">Save Tonight</a> <br/>Tegan and Sara - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVheSRpmB5o">I Won’t Be Left</a> <br/>Scissor Sisters - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KndtPgk5oVU">I Don’t Feel Like Dancing</a><br/>Tina Turner - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2obyWg7dAKM">What’s Love Got to Do With It?</a><br/>Jay Brannan - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7gYQdl5SlM">Good Mother</a> (originally by Jann Arden)</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>